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I am alarmed to hear that the city is allowing 22 cruise ships to enter and pollute our waters and that there was actually an effort to bring them here. How much value do you put on our beaches, the coastline, the channel, the marine mammals that call it their home? According to the article: approximately $200 per couple. Apparently enough for the city to risk the 168,000 gallons of sewage per day that they might “accidentally” dump into the channel. Is it worth it? I think not. The cruisers sleep on the ship so the hotels won’t benefit. They have all-you-can-eat buffets on board so they likely won’t spend that much money at the local restaurants. A few cheap souvenirs? Is it worth the risk? A giant cruise ship parked just outside the harbor is not a welcome sight for residents or other tourists who have come to Santa Barbara for the natural beauty and are actually contributing to the economy while protecting our coast.

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Let's do some math: 3000 passengers per ship times $200 = $600,000 in "cheap souvenirs" and restaurant fare per ship. Add 20 more ships and the total goes to $12,000,000 per year. Those are good numbers for Santa Barbara.

Yeah that $200 figure seems right out of a hat. But it was number presented by advocates, not the commentator here.And that's assuming everyone wants to stock up Santa Barbara T-shirts and sunglasses. Most of the stores on State St. are also available in Kansas., it's not like it used to be, unique and local. I think the anchorage fee goes to the city, which is good.

Georgy: Not a desperate search for revenue, a search for revenue that's limited to sources that entail no expense or responsibility to the city and no income to residents not involved in the tourism industry. A means of generating revenue that preserves the status quo of lack of affordable housing, unemployment, creation of impediments to commerce and new business ventures by residents by preserving high commercial real estate values, and providing inadequate services to residents.